Original copy : plagiarism and originality in nineteenth-century literature / Robert Macfarlane.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Macfarlane, Robert, 1976-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--19th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

Plagiarism--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Plagiarism.

Originality in literature.

Imitation in literature.

Physical Description:

xii, 244 p.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007.

Summary:

A wide-ranging and elegantly written study of how nineteenth-century culture thought about, and thought with, the idea of originality. It reveals how plagiarism was not only a theoretical concern of Victorian commentators on literature, but also provided a creative resource for many important writers including Eliot, Dickens, Pater, and Wilde.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Abbreviations

Introduction

Two theories of originality

Victorian originalities

1. 'Romantic' Originality

The new shibboleth

The Romantic handover

Purloined letters and plagiarism hunters

2. Legitimizing Appropriation

Composition and decomposition

Victorian selves and plagiarism

'They wot not of it': unconscious plagiarism

Noble contagion

Conclusions

3. George Eliot, Originality, and Plagiarism

Eliot and 'entire' originality

Deep originality

The onlie begetter

The commonwealth and the general mind

The uses of unoriginality: Eliot and misquotation

4. Charles Reade: The Realist as Plagiarist

Factual fictions

The double vision of Charles Reade

The 'Great System'

5. Aesthetics of Salvage in the Fin-de-Siècle: Originality and Plagiarism in Pater, Wilde, and Johnson

The cultivation of style and the breakdown of unity

Jewel-setting

Novitas: the turn to the dictionary

Refinement

Talent and tradition: the return to the library

'Ancestral voices': the ghosts of Lionel Johnson

Bibliography

Index

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

Y

Z.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [212]-235) and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780191537929

0191537926

OCLC:

316257612